2026.01.13.

2026.01.10.

2025.12.26.

Bookmarked “Writing Workflow”

This is actually a pretty interesting way to think about which app should be used for which type of writing.

Question: What am I writing?

a. Longform – a novel or non fiction piece of more than 2,000 words.

Answer: Scrivener

b. Shortform – a blog post or e-mail or report or some such. Something that I’m “drafting”.

Answer: IA Writer

c. Notes – an idea, a thought, a snippet or reminder. Something that may grow, or may link, but does not in its current form represent a draft towards publishing.

Answer: Obsidian

Question: where do I “archive” writing?

Answer: DevonThink

DevonThink is searchable, organised and backed-up. Perhaps archiving is an annual process – so at the beginning of 2022, I archive any and all pieces in IA Writer that predate 2021, leaving a minimum of 1 year and a maximum of 2 years in situ. Scrivener projects can be archived too. (In Plain Text)

See more about this topic:

2025.07.07.

Bookmarked “I Shipped a macOS App Built Entirely by Claude Code”

I recently shipped Context, a native macOS app for debugging MCP servers. The goal was to build a useful developer tool that feels at home on the platform, powered by Apple’s SwiftUI framework. I’ve been building software for the Mac since 2008, but this time was different: Context was almost 100% built by Claude Code. There is still skill and iteration involved in helping Claude build software, but of the 20,000 lines of code in this project, I estimate that I wrote less than 1,000 lines by hand.

Indragie shipped a native macOS app with Claude Code writing 95% of the code. Haven’t dug into the full post yet, but Simon Willison pulled out the key bits – Claude nails SwiftUI but gets tripped up by Swift’s newer concurrency stuff.

Starting Pezeta

Finally decided to start building Pezeta today. It’s been in my mind for years – since we started Agyvihar, our Hungarian podcast about personal finance and productivity.

What’s Pezeta?

Simple: a budgeting app that tells you one number – how much you can spend right now.

That’s it.

No charts. No categories. No endless reports. Just open the app and see: $47. Or $134. Or whatever you can actually spend without screwing up your budget.

The features (keeping it minimal)

The One Number – Your daily spending limit. Updated in real-time. Factors in your bills, savings, everything.

Goals – Want to save $2000 by December? Cool. The app adjusts your daily number automatically. No spreadsheets required.

That’s basically it. If budgeting were simpler, maybe more people would actually do it.

Starting with Rails

I’m not jumping straight into building native apps. Starting with a Rails MVP instead.

Few reasons:

  • Rails 8 has some new stuff I want to try
  • Need a reference implementation anyway for the iOS/macOS versions
  • I can actually use it myself while building

This Rails version won’t go public. It’s just for me to validate the idea and work out the kinks.

Building in public (might regret this)

I’m putting it all out there because watching someone figure things out might be more useful than another perfect tutorial.

Partly for feedback – maybe someone will tell me this is a terrible idea before I waste six months on it.

Partly for accountability – harder to quit when people are watching.

Partly because I’m curious what happens when you share the messy process instead of just the polished result.

The plan

Starting with Rails 8 setup, basic models, authentication. The boring foundation stuff that nobody talks about but takes forever.

After that, we’ll see. Building software is weird.

2025.03.09.

2025.02.26.

Mihai Parparita is asking on Mastodon:

What are good examples of early Mac OS X software (10.0-10.4 era, pre-Intel switch)?

Then providing the initial list.

  • OmniWeb, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner and other Omni Group software
  • Transmit 2, Unison, Candy Bar, Pixadex, and other Panic software
  • Audio Hijack and other Rogue Amoeba software
  • NetNewsWire and MarsEdit
  • Watson
  • Acorn
  • TextMate
  • Quicksilver
  • VoodooPad
  • BBEdit
  • SubEthaEdit
  • GraphicConverter
  • iCab
  • Camino
  • Fetch
  • Default Folder X
  • MenuMeters
  • DEVONthink
  • CodeWarrior
  • Resorcerer
  • FruitMenu, WindowShadeX and other Unsanity haxies
  • LiteSwitch X
  • DragThing and PCalc
  • TinkerTool
  • LaunchBar
  • Path Finder
  • Konfabulator

Good memories, although most if these are still alive and well.

2025.02.17.

2025.02.04.

2025.01.24.

Bookmarked “RIFT Notes”

Quickly capture your thoughts and find them later.

  • Always ready to capture

  • Message-like interface

  • Instant-search, grep-like results view

  • Syncs .md files to your iCloud

  • Markdown syntax highlighting

  • Sweet retro look ’n feel, color themes

  • (inspiration: SCRL component/style)

  • View your notes on a map

Interesting app, which also uses the chat-based UI we seen with Strflow and Gibberish. I really like the design of this one, feels retro.

Also, it saves notes as simple Markdown files, which can be moved around, so there is no proprietary database.

Previously:

2025.01.16.

2025.01.15.

2025.01.13.

2025.01.09.

2025.01.07.

Drafts alternatives

I still use Drafts and am not planning to switch, but in recent years, I’ve seen a couple of nice quick-capture app alternatives pop up. Since I just stumbled upon the new version of Funnel, I thought I would share some quick thought-capture apps.

  • Funnel
    • It captures text, transcribes voice, and even uses Shazam, which is pretty nice. Unfortunately, it is available only on iPhones.
  • Bebop
    • It is optimized for text file capturing, but it can be a pretty nice tool if you have a file-based system with The Archive. Again, iPhone only.
  • Capture
    • This seems to be the most interesting alternative to Drafts since it works on most Apple platforms (no Watch, though) and can capture stuff into a timeline-like format.

Retiring Script Debugger

I ran into this post the other day about Script Debugger getting retired.

January 2025 marks Script Debugger’s 30th anniversary. It’s been a very long run for a two-person effort. Script Debugger began as a Classic MacOS product, survived Apple’s near-death experience, transitioned to macOS X and migrated across 4 CPU processor types. We are so grateful for the support we’ve received over these years. This support allowed us to keep working on Script Debugger much longer than we ever imagined.

Shane and I are retiring and the effort and costs associated with continuing Script Debugger’s development are too great for us to bear any longer.

I bought this app about 2-3 years ago because I was getting serious about learning AppleScript, and in a short amount of time, it became an important part of my workflow. As I mentioned, I learned AppleScript with the help of Script Debugger’s awesome live inspection feature.

Since then, I have used this app to build many scripts that I use in my everyday workflow.

I don’t know the current state of AppleScript inside Apple, but I know that the difference between Script Debugger and Script Editor is night and day. Script Debugger should be part of the system, which is why I feel sad that another great Mac app, especially one with such a long history, is getting retired.

In June 2025, Script Debugger will no longer be offered for sale and all support and maintenance will cease.

At this time, Script Debugger will become a free download. Links to all versions of Script Debugger back to 5.0 will be posted, along with registration numbers that can be used to activate the software. These free versions of Script Debugger will be provided as-is and without any maintenance or support.

Currently, the developers plan to leave it as is. The problem with this approach is that any future macOS update could break Script Debugger. It’s not like 1Password 7, which, after years, I still keep around because I’m not going to migrate to their stupid Electron app. Script Debugger is a complex beast, so any new Windows Vista-style “security” dialog could kill it in an upcoming version. And boy, Apple has been really into “Cancel or Allow” lately.

Will Script Debugger become an open-source project? No. Unfortunately, there are portions of the Script Debugger source code we do not have the right to release.

I’m not sure how the app could be saved. I created a topic on MPU to let people know about it. Open-sourcing will not work since there are licensing issues, so the last resort is for someone to buy it. Or maybe some people in the Macscripter.net community could take care of it as Late Night Software “contractors.”

I don’t know yet, but it’ll be pretty sad the day when Script Debugger stops working.

Just an aside: it makes me wonder why we have Emacs and Vim still around alive and well…

2025.01.06.

I just love the Gibberish UI for drafting ideas

I subscribed to Gibberish again. It’s a pretty simple app with a weird idea: you can write blog posts by typing out your thoughts in a text messaging-style UI. Each message represents a paragraph.

Why that’s great? The messaging UI somehow triggers me to spit ideas into a chat thread, which I can revise later. Well, the “revise later” part is not the strongest suit of Gibberish, but creating the first draft is the best I found for me.

I just love this chat UI for capturing ideas. It’s not coincidental that people text themselves a lot. Also, it just makes sense how the app calls drafts “thoughts” and published stuff “posts.” I love small touches like this.

Though these are not posts, and I’m not writing a blog here, since I have to publish a post to get the “Copy Post Text” menu working, I figured, why the hell not? I’m not going to share the URL of my Gibberish “blog” since it is just a side effect of using the app “wrong,” but because I love this way of drafting things, I’m going to keep it around. I don’t care if people find it.

Since I’m using the app just kinda right (I don’t care about the blogging part), I wish it was just a private thing that syncs over iCloud (or whatever) with better support for exporting my “thoughts” into other apps like Drafts. As mentioned, I only publish my posts there to get the “Copy Text” option working.

So, essentially, I just want an app that I can use to ramble about stuff and then export to revise the content somewhere else. Gibberish would be an awesome app for collecting thoughts without having a blog behind it.

2025.01.04.

Sophiestication/Cappella

CoverSutra 4.0 got open-sourced (actually, it was open-sourced on Christmas, but I just got around to blogging about it).

Originally launched as an iTunes controller in 2007, CoverSutra is making its comeback as a standalone music player for your Mac! Version 4.0, code-named Cappella, brings you seamless music access directly from your menu bar. With its elegant interface, you can instantly search by album, artist, or song—all while staying focused on your work without needing to switch apps.

I used to love CoverSutra back in the day. In fact, I even created a Hungarian localization for the app (here’s an archive.org link to my old hungarian blog which looks like some old MySpace crap).

However, the app mysteriously disappeared around 2013. If I remember correctly the developer, Sophia Teutschler, was hired by Apple at that time.

A few months ago, Sophia brought CoverSutra back, but I’m not particularly pleased with the new version. It has become a separate music player, which is quite different from the original app.

These days, I primarily use Sleeve, which is quite similar to the early version of CoverSutra. It retains the feature of displaying the current song’s album artwork on the desktop, just like the CoverSutra did. I also use Sleeve to scrobble my music to Last.fm like it’s 2007 again.

Shell History Is Your Best Productivity Tool

If you work in shell/terminal often enough, then over time the history will become your personal knowledge vault, documentation and command reference. Being able to use this personal documentation efficiently can hugely boost your productivity. So, here are a couple of tips on how to optimize your shell history configuration and usage to get the most out of it.

Well, I’m not sure how effective the shell history of being a “personal knowledge vault, documentation, and command reference,” but optimizing its use doesn’t hurt.

I also looked into ShellHistory, which can create notebooks from the command history. Actually, this can be a pretty cool way to document processes, like installing a Rails app and its dependencies or starting a full stack of software.

With the ShellHistory you can easily keep years of shell history, search history using Full Text Search, back it up to iCloud, create Notebooks.

On the other hand, I could just keep the history synced between my Macs.

2024.09.03.

Trying out Strflow for project-related status updates

I used Strflow today with OmniFocus, which is pretty good for an interstitial journal. I can quickly bring it up and leave a status update about projects. It is handy when making a phone call and logging what we discussed.

I made two shortcuts, which work on the selected action’s project:

  1. Journal About Selected OmniFocus Project: ask for a quick status update, then it automatically tags the note with the project name converted to a hashtag.
  2. Open Selected OmniFocus Project Timeline: opens the timeline based on the project name.

I created a journaling shortcut for OmniFocus a couple of months ago, but it is built on top of DEVONthink. It doesn’t automatically get the project, and storing these entries in DEVONthink will make my status updates get mixed with project-related assets, which I don’t like.

By the way, I can also add pictures to Strflow entries, which is kind of hard to do in DEVONthink.

I used to do interstitial journaling in TaskPaper, and I’m not sure yet if Strflow is better or worse than TaskPaper, but at least it is available on iOS, too.

These days, I’m using TaskPaper for “brainstorming,” not journaling. TaskPaper is a pretty cool outliner, so I can quickly create session notes related to the selected OmniFocus action. But these are just fleeting notes… I’m using TaskPaper as a temporary thinking tool.

I can also share Strflow notes with other apps, like Day One, or add them to Drafts, where I can process and export them to other places, transforming Drafts into a tool that migrates text-based information between apps.

Also, I like how the Strflow timeline was made to look like a chat app. In a way, it feels like the old Twitter feed, where we posted random thoughts to get them out of our heads. It is a private version of that.

2024.08.28.

2024.08.15.

Read “A love letter to The Archive”

A lot of folks use Obsidian for managing a system like this; I’m here to provide an impassioned and perhaps overzealous argument for my tool of choice, The Archive (macOS). Because what’s life without fighting for what you love?

I was in the habit of trying to find the perfect Zettelkasten app lately, but I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no app like that, so I’ll just keep using what I have, which is The Archive, iA Writer, and my Zettelkasten website.

I am also trying to simplify my “Zettelkasten” setup (Zettelkasten refinements) to be more like a journal rather than a knowledge base, which would require a lot of discipline to maintain. Instead, I want to capture ideas in a stream and see what will emerge.

Bookmarked “kindaVim”

Vim Mode for macOS. The mode you love in your favorite editor, now in your favorite OS.

I want to use something like this, but I don’t like that it is automatically enabled in every text view. Also, a subscription for this?

I remember the QuickCursor app from Hog Bay Software, which lets you select any text by pressing a keyboard shortcut, which would open the text in your favorite editor. Saving the file in the editor would update the text view. Sadly, it is not developed anymore.

These days, I select the text in the text view and use the “New MacVim Buffer With Selection” service. This opens the selected text in MacVim, although I have to paste the text manually back.